Retailer Promotions: How to Really Sell Your Book on Amazon, Kobo and more

Promotions shift products. How many people do you know that have never been tempted by an offer when doing the weekly supermarket shop? It’s not just the supermarkets that are playing this game, every retailer on- and offline has the same trick up their sleeve: promotions. If you opt to have us manage your distribution, you will benefit from the relationships that we have built up with retailers. Merchandisers regularly reach out to us to ask us if we have anything suitable for promotions, whether they are seasonal e.g. “Back to School” or “Christmas” or genre-themed e.g. romance and women’s fiction promotions or just regular monthly slots. The gallery above shows some of the different sorts of promotions we have had our titles featured in.

There are millions of eBooks on retailer websites such as Amazon, and being included in a promotion is a great way to rise above the competition and get visible. Traditional bookshops go out of their way to put their offers right under their customers’ noses; online bookshops are no different. They use various site placements, mail outs and social media campaigns to pull people towards a specific landing page where they are running a specific promotion. Being included in a promotion enables you to benefit from this increase in traffic.

This inevitably results in an increase in sales and better ranking/chart positioning. This short burst can really kick-start sales. More sales generally means more reader reviews, which in turn encourages new readers that have never heard of you to try your book.

A good example of the power of an Amazon promotion is a memoir we published called On Charlotte’s Shoulders. This uplifting memoir was selected for Amazon’s monthly 100 under £2.99. During the promotional month, the title was No.1 in 3 different Kindle charts (including history as shown below) as well as no. 16 in the overall Kindle chart. The title now has over 65 reader reviews with an average of 4.5 stars, which gives future browsers confidence to try the book for themselves.

In our experience, inclusion in a retailer promotion is the single greatest tool for increasing book sales.

If you want to find out more about our distribution and how we work with retailers click here.

Every few weeks we submit titles for retailer promotions. We know what they are looking for in terms of content, jacket design and blurb so we ensure that all our titles tick those boxes. However, being submitted for these promotions is one thing, but actually being selected is another. The individual retailer will make this decision, but there is one very important thing you can do to give your book the best chance of being selected… have as many reader reviews as possible on your product page. Nag everyone you know who has read the book to leave honest feedback on Amazon. Even people that have not bought the book on Amazon can leave feedback there. It may even be worth giving a few free copies of your book/eBook out to people in exchange for an honest review to get the ball rolling. The more the merrier.

is our editorial guru. From dialogue to story arcs, she has a passion for helping authors improve their writing. She enjoys long, hilly runs in the countryside and is currently window-shopping for a new puppy.
Weapon of choice: A strong coffee and a red pen.
Currently reading: A Brief History of Seven Killings.